Not quite, but close. I use WiFi extensively, both at home and around town. It's been months since I plugged an ethernet cable into the box. But I still keep a POTS line (Plain Old Telephone Service) for a couple of reasons. One being that the call box at the front door of my building is tied into the phone system. That is, if someone comes to visit me, they call me from the door and I use the phone to let them in. The other reason is that my wife and I live in different places for the time being and communicate a lot via phone and videoconferencing. Rather than both of us paying for unlimited mobile calling plans, we usually arrange for her to call my landline. That way only one side racks up the minutes and only one side needs to maintain a calling plan with a robust long-distance allotment.

As far as WiFi, I haven't ventured into that world, but some of you have. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.

The combination of WiFi and mobile computing has profoundly changed the idea of what a computer is to me. The ability to have the computer with you, rather than it being a fixture in the home, is a good thing in itself. When you add the ability to connect to the Internet remotely, the synergy is amazing.

As an example, last week there was a marathon run through downtown. I walked upstairs with the notebook, linked to my WiFi sytem in the condo, and set up a webcam to share the site with my wife in San Antonio while talking to her on the mobile phone. That's a scenario that simply isn't going to happen if I'd had to string wires. As it is, that impromptu connectivity adds a lot of richness to our relationship. Likewise, the ability to walk up to a neighborhood watering hole, pop out the camera, and crank up a videoconference between my wife and our friends at the table adds more dimension to our lives.

So I decided to get hi speed cable internet, KEEP my cable TV, KEEP my cell phone, and DITCH my land line phone. It worked out perfectly in the months following.

A year or so went by, and then I traded some house speakers for a DSS dish, receiver, and access card. So now I no longer needed to pay Time Warner for the 300 channels of digital cable. I turned in my digital receiver to Time Warner, and told them I only wanted broadband internet from them for 44 dollars a month. Well, they said fine, and never came back to disconnect my cable TV. So I got the standard 65 channels on cable TV that you can get without a digital tuner, PLUS broadband internet, and they are only billing me 44 bucks a month. I kept the cable in my bedroom, and went to DSS in the den.

I will say this for other folks who are still on dial up. DITCH IT. Go broadband and just pay the freakin' bill. It'll be the best extra 25 bucks you ever spent. Once you get used to surfing broadband, it's just too frustrating to ever go back to dial up. It's worth the money to surf fast. For those of ya'll in Knoxville that do not want to pay your local cable for broadband, there is ANOTHER option. Buy a direcway dish for 500 bucks and pay 50 bucks a month for hi speed satellite internet, or wahtever it costs. I had heard that price from one guy, but as I surfed around tonight the price looks lower for the dish and higher by the month than that figure I gave.

Now, this ain't the OLD way of satellite surfin'

where your mouse click transmits thru phone lines, and your download is coming in thru the elliptical dish. This thing UPLINKS the technology you choose to pull down from the dish; it don't use no dang phone to upload. Speeds from what I hear are +/-400 kbps, which is not as fast as cable CAN sometimes be. Some folks on cable can download at between half a meg and a meg a second. But it IS respectable. And if the price of Direcway was lower I'd get in on it. For folks who hate their local cable company bad enough, I say to GET IT. Try it out.

I drive a sports car that has a tight suspension, and these burned CDs (even those that have cda files in a direct dupe of a CD) with MP3s just skip and screw up all the time. So what I end up doing is basically PREviewing an album or an artist. I'm going to buy my first Dwight Yoakam album tomorrow. I heard Johnny Cash in an interview before he died mention Yoakam. The interviewer asked Johnny who was his favorite male and female country artist, and he said Dwight Yoakam was his favorite male artist, and EmmyLou Harris was his favorite female artist. I figured if a living legend like Johnny digs it, I better check it out. So I got some Dwight off the net, but I ain't gonna AVOID buying an artist just so I can get something for free.

Since I already like what I hear, I'm gonna go ahead and get his latest CD which just hit the stores. So in my situation, file sharing helps me DECIDE if I'll go buy an artist's work. I'm not using the system to BEAT Capitol Records out of paying them money for a product. To me, the PRODUCT of MP3s suck. I can hear gradations, hi transient anomalies, brashy midranges and weaker bass in MP3s (those of ya'll can recall my fiery debate with Plum over the weaknesses of digital music versus analog, where he was thoroughly schooled on how digital music has numerous problems)...

and I want the stability and quality that a store bought CD has.

Heck, I LIKE reading liner notes, and I like patronizing the artists that I like. I don't want to rip them off anymore than I'd want someone taking something from me. But I still like the ABILITY to FREELY download music and LISTEN to it at my computer. I typically don't keep it that long anyway. And I don't really want to PAY for MP3s because the quality to me is just not really there. I don't 'burn' CDs of MP3 files. But I do DUPLICATE some CDs that I like. And I'd rather have some burned ones get stolen out of my car than the originals. I'll have some store bought ones in there, but not many more than a few, and the rest of the CDs (the ones that STAY with the car) are all burned ones.

Memphis has some serious car theft, car burglaries, and car vandalism. I'm not gonna leave much in my car to get.

I DO think that eventually these music companies will win, or drive the whole thing underground so far that ordinary folks won't know where or how to get free music. Or else it'll just ge to be too much of a hassle to deal with in some other way.

I suggest going to that kind of resource for a "preview" rather than buying used or downloading. Also, you can make copies of the higher quality cda files. New releases are few and far between, however, so this method doesn't cover all the bases.

If the music industry wanted to prevent theft of its product, they should have never allowed blank cassettes or CDR's to exist. But capitalism allows such product to exist. Selling or possessing blank media is not a criminal act. Anyway, the exchange of information goes back to cave paintings. Ergo, that exchange will never die, though the means of transmission or display might have its flaws, or be less than superior.

IRC channels have been trading music files for years. Napster made the exchange a tad bit easier. As long as I can connect remotely to another server or pc, I can have the ability to file exchange. Most messenger services allow file exchange. The realm of digital changes things because, for many, an mp3 will suffice. It's good enough quality to suit the needs of many people. If one were raised on vinyl, there probably isn't even a noticeable difference, assuming these people aren't audiophiles.

But, just because one has access, does not mean there aren't legal issues. If one has access to a gun, he or she can do a lot of harm, or perhaps, use it as a tool for his or her protection. If one follows this analogy, the computer can serve as protection as well as a weapon. It's unfortunate that many use the PC as a malicious device, and never fully realize that the very aspects it exploits can also be advantageous to the individual.

Bottomline, fair use and ownership should allow anyone to make copies of media for one's own personal use.